Game Design Sketchbook: Immortality

[Jason Rohrer]

Game Design Sketchbook: Immortality

With Immortality, Jason Rohrer questions our feelings about life and death. Is immortality good? Is death bad? If you could become immortal, would you?

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[Skrapt]

I wouldn't take individual immortality, maybe I'd take it if it were for me and a few selected people.

 

[man-man]

Death is an efficient method of recycling the resources tied up inside a body... I guess that's a good thing. The whole death/rebirth cycle.

It would be nice if it was more of an opt-in process though.

 

[Spamwich]

I would gladly take it, at least initially. How else would you experience all you ever wanted? One lifetime is too short. Of course, I'm sure the ennui would kick in eventually, and then there would be no way out.

 

[Mstrswrd]

The problem with Imortality (I think of it in Highlander terms), is that you don;t die, while everyone else does. Now, If it was indeed the Highlander Imortaility, with the whole "Lose your head, lose your life," thing, I think I'd take it. Just not ther whole "There can only be one" thing.

 

[Usige Beatha]

Personally, I will live forever. Technically *according to Christianity at least* we all live on in some way, shape, or form. Hell even of you don't believe you will live on, you still survive in the memories of your loved ones and children. Your genetic material and genes will be passed to the next generations for as long as people exist.

So be it through God, or through my descendants I will always live on. So I guess immortality is overrated.

 

[Evilbunny]

I don't think I would take it. If I did not age and everyone around me did I wouldn't be able to live a normal life. I can't imagine my wife being 80 and me still looking 20. Then having to watch my children and grandchildren die before me? I don't think I could do it.

 

[UpInSmoke]

Personally, I will live forever. Technically *according to Christianity at least* we all live on in some way, shape, or form. Hell even of you don't believe you will live on, you still survive in the memories of your loved ones and children. Your genetic material and genes will be passed to the next generations for as long as people exist.

So be it through God, or through my descendants I will always live on. So I guess immortality is overrated.

Good luck on the whole Jesus thing. Let me know how that works out for you. Also, you don't live on through your descendants. I hate that cliche. They go on. You stop. Spreading your DNA is wonderful (and fun) while alive, but totally irrelevant when you're dead and smelly.

 

[Usige Beatha]

Personally, I will live forever. Technically *according to Christianity at least* we all live on in some way, shape, or form. Hell even of you don't believe you will live on, you still survive in the memories of your loved ones and children. Your genetic material and genes will be passed to the next generations for as long as people exist.

So be it through God, or through my descendants I will always live on. So I guess immortality is overrated.

Good luck on the whole Jesus thing. Let me know how that works out for you. Also, you don't live on through your descendants. I hate that cliche. They go on. You stop. Spreading your DNA is wonderful (and fun) while alive, but totally irrelevant when you're dead and smelly.

Well aren't you a pessimist.

Comrade, nothing just stops. Even if our souls die with the body then the nutrients that made up our body are absorbed by the soil, we're used by plants who are eaten by animals which are eaten by other animals and eventually humans perhaps. But the fact is the stuff we are made of will ALWAYS go on.

I take comfort in that thought so I don't need immortality.

 

[UpInSmoke]

Personally, I will live forever. Technically *according to Christianity at least* we all live on in some way, shape, or form. Hell even of you don't believe you will live on, you still survive in the memories of your loved ones and children. Your genetic material and genes will be passed to the next generations for as long as people exist.

So be it through God, or through my descendants I will always live on. So I guess immortality is overrated.

Good luck on the whole Jesus thing. Let me know how that works out for you. Also, you don't live on through your descendants. I hate that cliche. They go on. You stop. Spreading your DNA is wonderful (and fun) while alive, but totally irrelevant when you're dead and smelly.

Well aren't you a pessimist.

Comrade, nothing just stops. Even if our souls die with the body then the nutrients that made up our body are absorbed by the soil, we're used by plants who are eaten by animals which are eaten by other animals and eventually humans perhaps. But the fact is the stuff we are made of will ALWAYS go on.

I take comfort in that thought so I don't need immortality.

If you can take comfort from the thought of losing consciousness permanently and turning into dirt, then more power to you my good man. If I'm a pessimist, you're a dreamer.

 

[mintfresh]

I've often thought it through. I know that in the end, at some point, even if it's just when humanity is destroyed or evolved beyond you, you'd get sick of it. But that said, I'd still go for it, even though i'm sure I'd regret it eventually. The prospect of being able to see the future, to do everything I've ever wanted is too appealing.

 

[Blayze]

Immortality as in "eternal youth and health"? Sign me up. Hell, there's no choice that needs to be made. It'd be a bit of a bastard if it meant you still aged and fell sick, though. Imagine being the first person to develop a fatal illness at the ripe old age of 2,407 - looking every bit your age - and having to suffer through every agonising second of it, bound to life like a slave.

 

[vun]

I wouldn't become immortal even if they offered me staggering piles of money for it.
Unlike most people I look forward to death rather than fear it. I want to know what happens when I die, most likely my brain will stop functioning and I will simply cease to exist but there's always hoping it'll be something fun. Personally I believe the soul fad to be a bunch of lies created to calm down family and friends of diseased humans or close animals; family dog etc.

And no, I'm neither depressive nor wrist-slitting, I've just got the curiosity to kill a big-ass mountain of cats.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

If you can take comfort from the thought of losing consciousness permanently and turning into dirt, then more power to you my good man. If I'm a pessimist, you're a dreamer.

When Science can actually define consciousness, then they can disprove reincarnation; until then, I'm coming back as a shrubbery.

Immortality's over-rated though. Imagine infinite Monday's...urgh.

 

[plgagne]

I don't want to stop your fine discussion, but I seriously have a problem with the article. Fine article, by the way, it's just that I download the game, unzip it, and what do I find, it's a exe. I'm on a mac, people, and I'm bummed. Not because its an exe, that I'm ok with, I can just skip playing the game, it's just that nowhere in the article is it said it's Windows only. Could the article just at least say, oh, people, by the by, it's Windows only.

 

[Ultrajoe]

I like the idea of immortality.

And its not a knee jerk reaction, i've put a damn big chunk of thought into this.

 

[SADASS]

I would take it. or at least agelessness. immortalty would feel too much like a real life god mode cheat =D

And agelessness gives an opt-out option too.

 

[darthgareth]

If people didnt die, the earth would become so overpopulated, the earth's resourses would dissapear almost instantly, causing universal drought, and brining the apocolypse. Also you have to question what happens when every dream you've ever had is fulfilled. Death serves an important role in every life, plus the fact that I would just be used as a tool for war or something. If you can't die, everything is pointless! What if youre stressed? what if the end of the world happens, and youre left on an atmosphere free bit of burnt rock? It just doesnt seem worth it to me.

 

[Patriarch917]

Why would we care about drought, or running out of resources, as immortals, we need neither eat nor drink, and we can launch ourselves through space without fear of dying.

Of course, I'm thinking of the glorious immortal bodies of the resurrection, as described in the bible. Any other sort of immortality would hardly be worthwhile.

 

[BobisOnlyBob]

[http://img261.imageshack.us/my.php?image=immortal1bv7.png]

[http://img143.imageshack.us/my.php?image=immortal2gk0.png]

"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"